THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF ROMAN WHODUNNITS
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THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF
ROMAN
WHODUNNITS
Edited by Mike Ashley
CARROLL & GRAF PUBLISHERS
New York Carroll & Graf Publishers
An imprint of Avalon Publishing Group, Inc.
161 William Street
NY 10038-2607
www.carrollandgraf.com
First published in the UK by Robinson,
an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd 2003
First Carroll & Graf edition 2003
Collection and editorial material copyright © Mike Ashley 2003
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the publisher.
ISBN 0-7867-1241-4
Printed and bound in the EU
an ebookman scan
Contents
THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF ROMAN WHODUNNITS
Copyright and Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Long Reach of Rome by Steven Saylor
Never Forget by Tom Holt
A Gladiator Dies Only Once by Steven Saylor
The Hostage to Fortune by Michael Jecks
De Crimine by Miriam Allen deFord
The Will by John Maddox Roberts
Honey Moon by Marilyn Todd
Damnum Fatale by Philip Boast
Heads You Lose by Simon Scarrow
Great Caesar's Ghostby Michael Kurland
The Cleopatra Gameby Jane Finnis
Bread and Circuses by Caroline Lawrence
The Missing Centurionby Anonymous
Some Unpublished Correspondence of the Younger Plinyby Darrell Schweitzer
A Golden Opportunity by Jean Davidson
Caveat Emptor by Rosemary Rowe
Sunshine and Shadow by R. H. Stewart
The Case of His Own Abduction by Wallace Nichols
The Malice of the Anicii by Gillian Bradshaw
The Finger of Aphrodite by Mary Reed and Eric Mayer
The Lost Eagle by Peter Tremayne
End of Roman Whodunnits
Copyright and Acknowledgments
My thanks to all of the contributors to this anthology, especially Steven Saylor, who wrote such a thorough introduction that it saved me the trouble of having to write one. With the exception of "The Missing Centurion", which is in the public domain, all of the stories in this anthology are protected by copyright and are printed here with the permission of the authors and/or their representatives as listed below.
"Damnun Fatale" © 2003 by Philip Boast. Original to this anthology. Printed by permission of the author and the author's agent, the Dorian Literary Agency.
"The Malice of the Anicii" © 2003 by Gillian Bradshaw. Original to this anthology. Printed by permission of the author and the author's agent, the Dorian Literary Agency.
"De Crimine" © 1952 by Miriam Allen deFord. First published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, October 1952. Reprinted in accordance with the instructions of the author's estate.
"Never Forget" © 2003 by Tom Holt. Original to this anthology. Printed by permission of the author.
"A Hostage to Fortune" © 2003 by Michael Jecks. Original to this anthology. Printed by permission of the author.
"Great Caesar's Ghost" © 2003 by Michael Kurland. Original to this anthology. Printed by permission of the author.
"Bread and Circuses" © 2003 by Caroline Lawrence. Original to this anthology. Printed by permission of the author and the author's agent, Teresa Chris Agency.
"A Golden Opportunity" © 2003 by Jean Davidson. Original to this anthology. Printed by permission of the author.
"The Case of His Own Abduction" © 1966 by Wallace Nichols. First published in London Mystery Magazine #72, February 1967. Unable to trace surviving representatives of the author's estate.
"The Finger of Aphrodite" © 2003 by Mary Reed and Eric Mayer. Original to this anthology. Printed by permission of the authors.
"The Will" © 2003 by John Maddox Roberts. Original to this anthology. Printed by permission of the author.
"Caveat Emptor" © 2003 by Rosemary Rowe. Original to this anthology. Printed by permission of the author and the author's agent, the Dorian Literary Agency.
"Introduction: The Long Reach of Rome" and "A Gladiator Dies Only Once" © 2003 by Steven Saylor. Original to this anthology. Printed by permission of the author.
"Heads You Lose" © 2003 by Simon Scarrow. Original to this anthology. Printed by permission of the author.
"Some Unpublished Correspondence of the Younger Pliny" © 2003 by Darrell Schweitzer. Original to this anthology. Printed by permission of the author.
"Sunshine and Shadow" © 2003 by R.H. Stewart. Original to this anthology. Printed by permission of the author and the author's agent, Laurence Pollinger Limite
d.
"Honey Moon" © 2003 by Marilyn Todd. Original to this anthology. Printed by permission of the author.
"The Lost Eagle" © 2003 by Peter Tremayne. Original to this anthology. Printed by permission of the author and the author's agent, A. M. Heath & Co., Ltd.
Introduction: The Long Reach of Rome by Steven Saylor
Towards the end of the last century (circa 1987), I took my first trip to Rome, and like many a traveller I was overwhelmed by the sensation of making visceral contact with the past. In no other city do so many layers of history coexist so palpably within such a small space. In a matter of hours one can follow Caesar's footsteps through the Forum, take a short rail excursion to the excavated ruins at Ostia, view the art of Michelangelo and contemplate Papal intrigues at the Vatican, gawk at the Fascist architecture at Mussolini's EUR, and even take a tour of the film studios at Cinecittá with their echoes of Fellini and La Dolce Vita.
Inspired by that visit, and having developed an insatiable appetite for crime fiction, I found myself craving a murder mystery set in ancient Rome.
It seems remarkable now that no such thing was to be found on the bookshelves as recently as 1987, but such was the case, and so I felt compelled to fill the gap myself. A couple of years later I finished a novel called Roman Blood featuring a sleuth called Gordianus the Finder. Only days after sending the manuscript to an editor in New York, I came across a copy of Lindsey Davis's The Silver Pigs among the new titles at my local bookshop, and had an inkling that a whole subgenre combining murder mystery and Roman history was about to be born.
Indeed, so popular has this particular field of literary escapism become in the last dozen years that a volume like the one you hold in your hands seems as inevitable as it does intriguing.
The booming subgenre has grown to include its own well-established crime-solvers, and here readers will find new adventures for John Maddox Roberts's hero of the SPQR series, Decius Mettelus; for that randy vixen Claudia, the heroine of Marilyn Todd's novels; for Rosemary Rowe's Libertus, a freedman who solves crimes in Roman Britain; for John the Eunuch, the Byzantine sleuth of Mary Reed and Eric Mayer; for Peter Tremayne's Sister Fidelma, who dwells on the furthest edges and in the last feeble twilight of the Roman Empire's glow; and even for the young detectives of Caroline Lawrence, who takes the Roman mystery into the realm of children's fiction (grooming a new generation of readers for my own Gordianus books, I hope).
Here readers will find traditional forms of the mystery story, including a "locked-room" puzzler by Michael Kurland, in which the great pedagogue Quintilian plays sleuth for the emperor Vespasian; traditional forms of historical fiction, such as Darrell Schweitzer's epistolary "Some Unpublished Correspondence of the Young Pliny"; and even a story which purports to be actual history, Gillian Bradshaw's "The Malice of the Anicii", complete with footnotes.
Many of the stories are set in Rome itself, but the locales range from ancient Egypt ("The Missing Centurion") to the besieged city of Jerusalem (Simon Scarrow's "Heads You Lose") to the Canterbury of Tremayne's Sister Fidelma — all the better to demonstrate the extraordinary reach of Rome across both seas and centuries. (Quite a few of the stories take place in Roman Britain, including those by R.H. Stewart and Jean Davidson.)
Inevitably, perhaps, the shadow of Julius Caesar falls across these pages (see Michael Jecks's "A Hostage to Fortune" and John Maddox Roberts's "The Will"), as does that of Cleopatra (whose demise haunts Roman high society in Jane Finnis's "The Cleopatra Game").
Given the imperial might of Rome, it's not surprising that a number of these stories are set in a military milieu. But Rome was also about the world of intellect and spiritual contemplation. Confronted by a bizarre death, it makes perfect sense that the mighty conqueror Scipio Africanus should seek a Greek philosopher's advice in Tom Holt's "Never Forget", and even the advent of that curious sect, the Christians, is occasioned by murder, as seen in Philip Boast's "Damnum Fatale".
For my own part, as a bit of homage to a movie that gave a considerable boost to our subgenre (and because I've never written at length on the subject before), I decided to spin a tale set in the world of gladiators. The most famous gladiator of all does not appear in my story, but his shadow is eventually cast over the proceedings, as it was cast, if only briefly, over the entire Roman world.
While it may have gained its greatest popularity in recent years, the crime story set in ancient Rome was not actually invented in the 1990s, but has numerous precursors. This volume includes a small but intriguing sampling of some earlier forays, including Miriam Allen deFord's "De Crimine" from 1952, featuring the famous advocate Cicero and based on actual events, as well as one of Wallace Nicholls's vintage tales of the Slave Detective. The anonymously authored "The Missing Centurion" dates from 1862, and so constitutes one of the earliest efforts to mingle historical and mystery fiction; kudos to editor Mike Ashley for rescuing it from utter obscurity.
Here then is the panoply of ancient Rome cast across continents and ages, viewed through the gimlet eyes of those who make it their business to write about the lowest human activity (murder) and the highest (the quest for truth). What better way to celebrate the virtues and the vices of a city that claims to be eternal?
Steven Saylor
Never Forget by Tom Holt
We start our investigations in ancient Rome at a time when Rome was establishing its pre-eminence in the Mediterranean world with Scipio's defeat of Hannibal in the Second Punic War in 202 BC. Tom Holt may be best known for his humorous fantasy novels such as Who's Afraid of Beowulf? (1988), Paint Your Dragon (1996) and Snow White and the Seven Samurai (1999), but he is also the author of several fine historical novels set in the ancient world. These include Goatsong (1989), The Walled Orchard (1990), Alexander at the World's End (1999) and Olympiad (2000).
"Fine," said Publius Cornelius Scipio, the World's Biggest Man, "but what does a philosopher actually do?"
Your typical Roman question; ignorant, offensive and unpleasantly awkward to deal with. "We think about things," I said.
"You think about things?"
"Yes."
"And that's it?"
Oh no you don't, I said to myself. You may be a military genius and the man who beat Hannibal, but I'm a Greek lawyer. You don't stand a chance.
"That's it," I said. "Because, after all, thought's what separates men from animals. Thought's the part of us that makes us like the gods. So we think about things."
He shrugged. "What things?" he asked.
Outside the tent, soldiers were moving about; I could feel the tramp of their nailed sandals on the baked ground, coming up through the soles of my own feet. Where the tent-flap was slightly open, I couldn't see anything except the blinding African sun, occasionally eclipsed for a split second as people hurried past. The smell of Army was everywhere and overpowering, but I tried to ignore it.
"Everything," I said. "Everything separately, and everything together, in the context of everything else. That's what's so special about thought."
"Really." I could see I'd lost him, which wasn't good. I needed the job. "In other words, you sit on your bum in the shade with your mouth open, and for that you're worth more per day than a blacksmith makes in a year." He shook his head. "No disrespect," he said, "but you're full of it."
I smothered a grin. "Absolutely," I said. "I'm full of everything, because I'm full of thought. In thought, the whole universe exists in microcosm inside my head, perfect in every detail. More to the point, I can recreate the universe any time I like, just by thinking. You give me a feather, and I can think you the whole chicken. From first principles, as it were."
He turned his head ever so slightly, and I knew I'd got him. Using his own tactics against him, of course. In the great battle, a week ago, he'd provoked Hannibal into committing his elephants to a charge, and then opened his lines and let them pass harmlessly through. Scipio's mind was all elephants.
"You reckon," he said.
"Yes, I do
," I replied. "Which is, of course, why you need me on your team. It's the perfect combination; Roman energy, vigour and muscle, Greek intellect. And please bear in mind, so far all you've done is the easy bit; fight Hannibal, win the war, that stuff. Now you've got to face the tricky part. Which is why you need me."
"Tricky part," he repeated. To do him credit, he spoke Greek like — well, not like a proper Greek, but he could've passed for a half-breed Sicilian, on a good day, with a bad cold to mask his accent. "Like?"
"Like going home," I said. "Surviving victory. Winning is easy. Staying won; that's hard."
He laughed; strange man, I thought. "Well," he said, "tell you what, here's the deal. I have a very nasty, inconvenient problem that needs to be cleared up fast; in two days, to be precise, and assuming the weather doesn't get even hotter. And the thing of it is, this is a thinking problem, not a doing one. It means going back into the past. Do you reckon you can manage that, just by thinking?"
"Of course," I said. "And if I succeed, I get the job. Agreed?"
He smiled. Good-looking man, for a Roman. "Agreed," he said.
"Excellent. So, what's the problem?"
Here's a rule of life for you; don't try being clever around Roman generals. They're all of them thick as valley oaks, but sly. There's not a lot that your finely honed lawyer-philosopher's brain can do about sly; it sneaks past your defences and bites your ankles.
Scipio grinned at me, then led me through the camp to the big open space in the middle, where the soldiers do drill and stuff. Just off this main square (Roman camps are like towns, with a square and streets and everything) was a little canvas and ox-hide alleyway, backing on to a high paling fence. When we reached the end of it, I saw something that made me realize I'd just been taken for a garlic-nibbler.
Dead body. Very dead. The glorious Plato, looking for the perfect encapsulation of the essential nature of Dead, would've jumped up and down and clapped his hands in glee.
I have this thing with dead bodies. I don't like them terribly much.
"That's the problem," said Scipio, pointing at the red and black thing slumped in the dust, attractively garnished with flies. "Marcus Vitellius Acer, Roman senator, sort of a second-cum-third cousin of mine. If you look closely, you'll see he's had his head bashed in. It'd be a great help to me if you could think about it, and tell me who did it."
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